Follow UsAnd then there were two!
70 group games, and more than two months later, two skippers sat together ahead of the final of the 2025 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the press conference before the big day. Both Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) haven’t won an IPL trophy yet, and one of them will have to suffer the kind of heartbreak athletes don’t forget easily.
However, PBKS skipper Shreyas Iyer seems to have forgotten all that and was pumped up ahead of the final. He hyped the contest and said that it would all be about the rivalry on June 3 in Ahmedabad, despite RCB having many players who share a good rapport with Iyer, including Virat Kohli.
“When you are on the field, it's all about the rivalry. It's not about comfort. At all,” the PBKS skipper said with his characteristic swagger.
“When you step onto the field, you are at a war, and you fight to win. So, I will put in everything, and I will give in everything to see to it that my team wins."
However, PBKS were dominated by RCB in the first qualifier in Mullanpur, where Josh Hazlewood and Suyash Sharma blew the Punjab batting lineup away. But skipper Iyer said that it's a new ground, and PBKS had already scored 243/5 on the pitch that will be used in the final when they played their first league game of the season. Iyer had scored 97* in that game.
“I would just like to say that we are on a different wicket right now,” the right-hander remarked.
“Definitely they have been bowling very well throughout. It's important to adapt as quickly as possible and see to it that you are up for the challenge. And take the bull by the horns.
"You can't say this is how we will play because the situation can be anything and we have to play according to the situation. It's not like we are going with a plan and then we don't pivot if things go up or down. Our players are youngsters with fearless nature, but they have gained experience and they have adapted. So, we can't go with a straight plan. We have to go there and see how we are playing the wicket."
Meanwhile, RCB skipper Rajat Patidar said that the vibe of the game feels similar to the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT), where both Iyer and he were captaining Mumbai and Madhya Pradesh, respectively.
"I told Shreyas earlier that it feels the same [as the SMAT final]. The captains are the same, the stage is the final, but the only difference is, it was Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, this is the IPL,” the RCB skipper added.